I’m glad I’m out of school: Two new elements added to periodic table

The elements are the first to be added since copernicium in 2009. They have not yet been named, but are known for now as 114 and 116.

“Over the past 250 years, there have been basically 100 new elements discovered,” said Paul Karol, a chemistry professor at Carnegie Mellon University and chair of the committee that recommended the additions.

The pair were found through atom-smasher experiments

called cross-bombardments, according to research published by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

The new elements were first detected in 2004 and 2006, but it took years to confirm them.